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Education in Twentieth Century Whickham & District
Introduction
At the dawn of the twentieth century there was only a handful of schools in the Whickham and District area. In Whickham there was the Parochial School and one or two private schools, Dunston had the Church School and the Board School and Marley Hill and Swalwell both had Board Schools.
Whickham Parochial School began life as Whickham Charity School in 1714 when Mrs Joan Blakiston left £100 in trust to the Rector of St Mary's Church, the Rev Dr Robert Thomlinson, for the education of 36 poor children in Whickham Parish. In 1742 the first school building was erected in School Lane and was altered and extended in 1825 and 1869, before ceasing to house the school on October 22nd 1971, when it moved to its new premises on The Broadway. This new school was officially opened on February 29th 1972.
The one or two private schools do not appear to be documented. In the "Whickham Journal" No 5, published in 1978, there is an article by Alan Wright in conversation with Grace Hilda Cook, who was born in 1892. She was "educated at a little known private school known as Miss Fanny Stevenson's, which is now the Co-op next to West End Methodist Church." (The Co-op is no longer there and the Whickham Community Church now occupies the church building.) In 1929 a private school, Mrs Easey's Academy, which became Whickham Preparatory School, opened in Church Chare.
In the early part of the century the Parochial School was becoming overcrowded and in August 1909 the Whickham Front Street Infant School and Whickham County Council School were opened. With changes in education required by law and the huge house building programme which began in Whickham in the 1950s, many more schools were needed to meet the educational needs of the town. Whickham Secondary Modern School opened in 1962 and became Whickham Comprehensive School in 1970. In 1966 Fellside Junior School was built, followed by Fellside Infant School in 1968. Washingwell Primary School and St Mary's Roman Catholic School were opened in 1972 and Cloverhill School followed in 1977. Whickham Chase Hall School and Whickham Cottage Nursery School began in the old Cottage Hospital in 1987. Gibside Special School was the last school to be opened in the twentieth century. It was created on the Fellside Infant School site, as this became vacant when the Infant School merged with the Junior School.
Dunston Church School was opened on November 4th 1818 and then Dunston Board School was built in 1874, becoming Dunston Council school in 1904. Since then it has been Dunston County School and is now Dunston County Riverside School. However, the name "Board School" lived on for years after it ceased to be that. Dunston Hill School opened in 1910 and Dunston acquired its Comprehensive School in 1973.
Marley Hill Colliery School, which was built by Isaac Bewley, was opened by Sir Charles Mark Palmer, a major industrialist of the region, on August 1st 1895. The school is now Marley Hill County Primary School and in its 105 year history to the end of the twentieth century has had only 7 Headteachers. The history of Marley Hill School has been recorded in a book written by Mrs Joan Telford, a former teacher at the school and a member of the Sunniside Local History Society.
Streetgate had its own primary school from 1923 to 1963, the unusually named White Elephant School. The origin of this name is lost in the mists of time, so if you know the reason for it, we should be delighted to hear from you. The school was on the site of the property, "High Trees", named after the high trees in its grounds, which were in the yard of the school. The school building was burned down in a mysterious fire in 1975.
Swalwell Board Schools, the Junior and Infant Schools, were opened by J.B. Alexander on December 1st 1874. The Infant School moved into new premises in 1973. After extension to accommodate the Junior School in 1987, the two were combined to form the Swalwell County Primary School. The original buildings were demolished soon afterwards.